2017 Summit Speaker Spotlight: Dr. Chuck Pettinger

The Safety Summit prides itself on providing an intimate and informative two-day experience for its attendees. We believe that our attendees stand to learn the most when they can deeply explore esteemed speakers' insights.

“Big Data” is really having a moment these days. And, for good reason. While researchers have long understood its significance and ability to tell a story, its application in the business-sector has been underutilized and undervalued.

Helping to lead the “Big Data” movement, 2017 Summit Speaker Dr. Chuck Pettinger (Predictive Solutions) is devoting a pre-conference workshop and presentation to educating our attendees on how they can better analyze their safety data and “look for the signals from the noise” so that this data adds value to their overall safety initiatives.

A self-described “research geek,” Chuck says his initiation into the behavioral safety field began while attending graduate school at Virginia Tech, under the guidance of -- yep, you guessed it – Dr. E. Scott Geller (have we mentioned he’s presenting at this year’s Summit?)!

“… the behavioral safety field was just getting some traction. I was able to participate in a NIOSH grant entitled ‘Critical Success Factor of [Behavioral Based Safety (BBS)].’ My dissertation was on which competing psychological theory predicted more participation in a BBS process. So it wasn’t so much that I was drawn into BBS, as I was helping to shape the infant field that turned into BBS,” he says.

Chuck says his passion for analyzing data and looking for trends continued throughout school, eventually guiding his career further into the world of BBS data.

“I love the power of single subject designs, but nothing can take the place of over 320 million safety observations! When I worked with Scott, I helped design our BBS tracking tool. When I took my present job at Predictive Solutions, I got to play with millions of data points. Your BBS data tells a story…sometimes good sometimes bad. Sometimes we are so biased, we can’t even see the story that our data is telling us!”

Chuck encourages attendees to not underestimate the power of their BBS data, and hopes his presentation will empower them to take the data they have within their organizations and start a conversation. These conversations can be a matter of life or death.

“Even if you think your data is ‘pencil-whipped,’ that data still tells a story. Although I will talk about some data, the data is just the icing on the cake! The true power comes from the conversations the data allows us to have. If people start seeing the data as diagnostic tools, we can get in front of the processes that are no longer functioning, fix those, and eliminate death on the job,” he says.

While attendees will no doubt learn from Chuck’s insight, he says one of his favorite things about presenting at conferences is that it gives him the opportunity to learn.

“I learn from other speakers. I learn from having conversations with participants. And, I learn from the questions I get from my presentations! So ask questions!”

In addition to asking questions, Chuck says networking will help attendees get the most out of their Summit experience.

“As big data tells us: The wisdom of the crowds is best!”

We can’t wait to ask our questions and share our wisdom with Chuck next month!